Diane has joined me in London for a couple of days, and since this is her first time here, I thought it important to take her to the #1 Touristy London Thing of All: the Tower Bridge. The reader may recall that the City re-painted the bridge over the summer, so large parts of it had tarps draped over it while we had our first residence. Well, the painters have finished the bridge approaches:
Here's the "before" picture, in August:
Note also that the temperature fell a bit between the first and second photos. Strange how that happens in six months. In fact, it started snowing shortly after I took the top one, which explains why we've returned to the hotel a bit. We'll come back when it's warmer.
I've stopped briefly in London to take two days with no responsibility whatsoever. Along the way I got a brief glimpse of Kyiv, but tantalizingly the cloud cover started right over the city. (For the half-hour we flew over Eastern Ukraine the weather was perfectly clear.)
No, really, that's Kyiv:
I'm not entirely sure I'll get back to Chicago tomorrow, though. They're expecting a snowstorm:
The snow may cover the area over a 24-hour period beginning late Monday, according to the National Weather Service Web site.
Much of the area is expected to get a total of 8 to 10 inches of snow, with higher amounts possible near Lake Michigan in Illinois and across Northwest Indiana where lake enhanced and significant lake effect snow might occur.
Now out to breakfast in London.
From Colorado Springs, a cautionary example of the logical outcome of Republican taxation policies:
More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.
The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.
Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.
Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.
City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won't pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.
On the other hand, Colorado Springs has very low taxes.
I am pooped.
The third residency is over, and I've got a 7am flight out of Delhi tomorrow. This being Delhi, that means I have to get up around 3:45am to meet one of my classmates at 4:30—and that might be cutting it close. That means I'll leave the hotel around 10pm London time and arrive there around 9am, and somehow I'll have to stay awake for the rest of the day. I don't usually sleep on airplanes, but tomorrow morning I think I'll make an exception, whether I want to or not.
I almost forgot: Nandan Nilekani spoke to us Wednesday evening. Once I get all of India sorted out in my head I may write a bit more about him:
For the moment, I'll just wander aimlessly for a few hours until I fall asleep. I think that's the limit of what my brain can handle right now.
Apparently, Chandni Chowk (चाँदनी चौक) is closed Fridays in observance of the Islamic Sabbath. The formal shopping center, anyway. I'm willing to bet the actual street and neighborhood of the same name remained open this afternoon, but I could not convince my auto-rickshaw driver to take me there. I couldn't seem to break the language and cultural barriers separating him from an understanding that I just wanted to walk around without actually going in anywhere. In fact, I spent a lot of time this afternoon trying to convince people—mostly taxi and auto-rickshaw drivers, surprise—that my entire purpose was to walk around in Delhi without a fixed destination.
So, I let the guy take me to a carpet shop, and after spending a couple of minutes getting hard-sell from the salespeople inside I left. Wouldn't you know, the driver thoughtfully waited for me outside, and followed me down the street suggesting all manner of temples and shops he would happily take me to.
At some point he gave up, and let me take photos in peace. Here follows a quorum:
In New York people say you can get anything you want, any time of day. New York hasn't got anything on Delhi's entrepreneurs:
Continuing the walk:
One out of two isn't bad:
This I can't quite interpret. I think it means, put your green and red garbage in the green can, and put your blue garbage in the blue can. This leaves me curious where the yellow, teal, and chartreuse garbage goes:
Our residency ends tomorrow afternoon, and with the exception of the post-residency party and the trip out to the airport (Sunday morning at 4:30), I may not have another opportunity to leave the hotel. That's too bad. I hope we have a more open schedule when we go to Shanghai in April.
I will make it a priority to return to India in the next few years. Next time I'll do more of the tourist stuff.
Our team scored a coup, which I'll keep under wraps for now. In the meantime, I'm going to make my own way over to Chandni Chowk. I just have to see it again.
More, with photos, later today.
We're about to go out on our culture dash exercise, back to Chodni Chowk and other places in Delhi.
I expect to have the photos shortly after we get back. We don't have the volume of work tonight that we've had the last few nights, so I'll have the time. I would like to give you this marvelous quote from our statistics class today: "A model I can understand is a model I can sleep with at night." Imagine this with the professor's Italian accent and it's even better.
I have about another hour to complete a statistics quiz, which requires reading the materials for it, but I did promise photos of the Indira Gandhi International Airport Terminal 3 construction site. Here they are:
The departure/retail area between the domestic and international arms:
The arrivals concourse:
More later.
A group of us went on a tour of Indira Gandhi International Airport today, including the unfinished Terminal 3 building. Sadly, the art and description will have to wait for a bit. My work has piled up (as happens mid-residency) and I have two items due tonight.
One thought, though: if the sun hasn't peeked through the clouds all day in Punxsutawney, how is it possible Phil saw his shadow? I think they're putting words in the groundhog's mouth over there.
Only day 3? Yikes.
Of note today were the 6 hours of classes, the guest speaker, and the six power failures that seemed only to affect the lights and not any of the other electrical gear. In the next five hours or so I have about four hours of class prep to do, plus reviewing the team project due tomorrow. Somewhere in there I hope to eat and breathe. There may be a beer or two as well.
More photos from Saturday's trip to the Red Fort. First, Chandni Chowk:
After a short distance past that, we disappeared into the back-streets of Old Delhi, down Dariba Kalan Road. The street food looked tempting:
I might have tried some had we stopped before reaching the mosque at the end of the street. We might go back into Old Delhi on Friday when we do the Culture Dash project. I'm looking forward to it.